There are still summer (and spring!) blooms in my garden which is really inappropriate for a mid-November Garden Bloggers Bloom Day (Thank you, Carol for hosting). But what really excites me are the buds revealed on my newly naked star magnolia (Magnolia stellata). This was the first thing I planted after my Z and I bought our house two years one year, 8 months ago* and like our kids (Nino and the kittens) it was a rescue.
The magnolia was offered to me by a co-worker whose parents moved into a new home and rather than keep this stellar shrub, they preferred to junk it and plant a Rose of Sharon instead, no lie. (The horror!) Z and I drove over to Portsmouth to check it out – it was a good 5′ tall, 4′ wide, beautifully shaped and fully budded; we dug it up; tortured it by driving it unwrapped over the Mt. Hope bridge; planted it in terrible soil with little amendment and I proceeded to half forget about it during a drought year. The poor thing. Last year’s buds were pathetic and few and I hated myself for being a terrible gardener/plant slayer. I really thought it was a goner. But it survived. Bloomed even. And now it’s entirely budded up in a promise of spring splendor and I couldn’t be more relieved.
Here is further evidence that plants are forgiving of a lazy gardener:
By sending this GBBD post off to May Dreams Gardens, I am also making a sort of promise to keep writing about my own garden. And that means I’ll have to keep gardening (as if I could ever not have a garden) and maybe even follow through with all the promises I made to myself about the garden when we bought this place. Do you find that blogging about your garden helps you keep your promises?
*time flies but not always as fast as it feels… Hey, maybe I am still 28!
kristin green | trench manicure 
Welcome to GBBD! I am going to make sure this lazy gardenblogger (that would be me) adds you to her must see gardenbloggers list! Have a good gardening day! Gail
Gail, I am still envious of your “garden of benign neglect” but I seem to be growing my own! It’s nice to know I’m in good company. Happy gardening to you too! -kris
REALLY? They evicted the magnolia stellata for a Rose of Sharon?!!! *gasp* The horror.
I love that Stinky Coleus because of the succulent-looking leaves and the funky flowers… but I don’t think that the dog thought much about it one way or another. That said, it was in the urn planter, and she didn’t have a whole lot of interaction with it as such… so maybe your “dog fence” plan will work after all. 🙂
Oh, I know! But lucky me to have a big beautiful star magnolia all of a sudden – for free!
And probably I’ll have to come up with something hardy for the dog fence (like maybe an actual fence) because during the summer the hedge is a dog’s prickly nightmare… -kris
I had to click on the cool bucket to see what was in there. Well, the dead peppers are quite colorful! My daughter is in the process of moving to an old house divided into 3 units. She’s on the second floor, and right outside her bedroom window is a nice sized magnolia tree. I don’t have room for them, but love their blooms.
Sue, the peppers are more colorful now than when the plant was alive. Your daughter will love that tree come spring! – There’s a big magnolia down the street from me and I can pretend it’s in my garden because it’s in my view… -kris
You’ve gone public and we are all the better for it! I doubt that it is laziness which leads to plant neglect, more like the intrusion of life’s little episodes i.e. work, home, laundry, fun….etc
Oh yeah – that stuff! There is life beyond gardening … Can I blame it on blogging? Thanks for the encouragement! -kris